The present invention relates generally to mechanisms for attaching a strap to a guitar.
Guitar players require an apparatus for supporting a guitar around the guitar player's neck or other body appendage. To accomplish this goal, guitar buttons are often attached to the body of the guitar. A guitar strap engages these buttons utilizing a pair of coupling apparatuses on the ends of the strap. Unfortunately, these mechanisms are often complex and cumbersome. Often, the guitar player must manipulate unnecessarily complicated coupling mechanisms to secure and unsecure the coupling apparatuses from the button. Thus, the prior art coupling apparatuses often require the user to pull a lever or a manually operated knob in a direction different from the direction required to engage the button on the apparatus.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,900 discloses an engaging member with a chamber for inserting a guitar button. The engaging member is composed of two engaging pieces. The engaging pieces are connected to a shaft which contains a pair of pins. By rotating the shaft, the engaging pins separate the engaging pieces thereby permitting the button to be released from the chamber. Thus, with this design, the operator must rotate a shaft and at the same time remove the button from the chamber. The user thus must provide a movement for the mechanism which is inapposite to the movement for removing the button.
Another example is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,181. This patent reveals a mechanism with a catch having a chamber for receiving a guitar button. The guitar button has a groove at the top for receiving the lower part of a plunger in the catch. In order to remove the button from the catch, the guitar player must pull the plunger in a vertical direction thereby removing the lower part of the plunger from the groove in the button. The user then slides the button out of the chamber. As can be seen, a user must provide a vertical motion on the plunger in order to remove the bottom of the plunger from the button and provide a horizontal movement in order to remove the button from the catch's chamber. These prior art devices require the user to provide a motion for the securing mechanism, and a motion for removing the button from a chamber.